#669

Udo & Harald Tschira

Overview

Udo and Harald Tschira are the sons of Klaus Tschira, the software pioneer who cofounded SAP (Systems, Applications, Products) in 1972.

Klaus retired from the company in 1998, stepped down from its supervisory board in 2007, and passed away in 2015.

He was a trained physicist and hobby astronomer; an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter has been named after him.

His sons carry on the activities of the Klaus Tschira Foundation, which promotes learning in natural sciences, mathematics and computer science.

As of October 2021, the foundation, one of Germany's largest philanthropies, had awarded over $740 million in cash grants and in-kind donations.

Klaus Tschira's passion for astronomy began at an early age. His classmates at school called him "the planet kid."

He liked to experiment in his kitchen and helped create a children's cookbook that explains chemical and physical processes in the kitchen.